Fast and Furious

Enhancing your productivity by doing things faster.

Now that the holiday has, um, passed over, it’s time to get back to figuring out what we used to do with our time before we started either scrubbing or cooking absolutely everything in the house. Because we didn’t actually get anything done in the month before Passover that wasn’t actually Passover-related, and now we have to catch up. But how?

Now that the holiday has, um, passed over, it’s time to catch up.

If you ask experts for tips on being more productive, they will tell you, first of all, that you should keep a “to do” list.

That’s a great idea. I have a “to do” list on my computer that is, as we speak, 278 items long. On the average day, I add about 10 items to the list and then do about 8. Plus, there’s all that time I spend futzing around with my “to do” list.

But there is also another thing you can do to greatly enhance your productivity: Do things faster.

Sure, your mother told you that if you do things faster, you’ll just mess everything up and have to do it over. But there’s a pretty big chance that if you do things slowly, you’ll mess them up anyway. At least if you went faster the first time, you’ll have more time to do it over.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things in life for which faster isn’t necessarily better. Imagine if a surgeon said, “Okay, I know the surgery is supposed to take three hours, but I figure twenty minutes, tops. How big is your brain, right?”

And how about the people who attempt to run into an elevator as soon as the doors open, before the people who are in the elevator have a chance to get out? Do you think there will be more room in there if you get in first? Or do you think you can get started going up to the next floor while you’re waiting for everyone else to get out?

On the other hand, it would definitely speed up your day if the people who are in the elevator just got out faster. But they can’t get out, because you’re standing right in front of the door. So you spend a good 30 seconds in a stalemate, and that doesn’t do anything for anybody.

But yes, it will definitely help your productivity if everyone around you would move faster. For example, the people in front of you in the supermarket, who block the entire aisle and are moving so slowly that you think maybe their shopping cart doesn’t have any wheels. You know that sense that you have when you can sort of tell that there are people behind you, trying to get around? These people don’t have that. Maybe we should start equipping shopping carts with rear-view mirrors. And horns.

Or how about the people in front of you at the checkout, who, even though they’ve been waiting for the same 25 minutes that you were, they don’t even start looking for their supermarket card or their credit card until they get to the front of the line? Like it’s a total surprise to them that they need those things.

Or how about the people in front of you for whom, every item they’re buying, the cashier has to call the manager over like he’s never seen the item before in his life. “Do we carry this item? What is it? You didn’t just sneak it into the store and then attempt to pay us for it, did you?” and the customer, meanwhile, is trying to pay entirely in coupons from 1972. And then the person directly in front of you leaves his cart in line, and goes off to do his shopping for like the rest of the year, even though you got in line behind him in the first place because he didn’t have that many items in his cart. But then he looked back at your cart, and he got some ideas.

You didn’t just sneak this item into the store and then attempt to pay us for it, did you?”

“Gefilte fish! Where’d you find gefilte fish?”

“Over by the refrigerated fishes.”

“OOOOH! I’ll be right back.”

Or he looks at your cart, and he sees that you’re buying eight of something, and he figures that it must be on sale. So he goes off to find it, and of course he says, “Can you please watch my cart?” Like someone else is going to walk up and say, “Wow! These are exactly the foods that I need! Just ring these up for me!”

(Can you tell I spent a lot of time at the supermarket recently? This post-Passover restocking thing is killing me. And I’m not even really in the mood for any food right now in the first place, because – you know – Passover.)

There are also a lot of people in your way when you’re on the road. Now I don’t begrudge people for being on the road. But sometimes I’m sitting in my car, and I can’t go because the person in front of me is stopped, and has his window rolled down, and is talking to someone who is sitting in a car going the other way, who also has his window rolled down. I want to yell, “Get a cell phone!” Because at least then they’ll be moving. Sure, they’ll be swerving erratically, but at least that’s moving. And it’s one thing if they’re asking for directions, but they’re clearly not. When you’re asking for directions, you’re talking to someone all the way on the side of the road, and that person is bending down to see you and making vivid gestures with his arms, like that’s going to help you understand. No one asks for directions from people in the other cars. “Look, he’s coming from that direction! Maybe he knows how to go!”

And then there’s rubbernecking. Now I do understand the need to rubberneck. I hate it, but once everyone in front of you is rubbernecking, you’re also going to look, so you can see what the fuss is all about. You have to look, because now you’re late, and when you get there, people are going to ask why. “Why are you late?” And you want to give them a real answer. You don’t want to say, “I don’t know, first everyone slowed down, and then we started going again.”

But can’t people rubberneck faster? How long does it take? You get to the front, you look at the other side of the highway, you go, “That’s it?” and then you move! What is that, two seconds? We should be passing that accident at a rate of 30 cars per minute! But sometimes it takes people so long that by the time you get to the front, the accident is already all cleaned up, and your side of the highway is still backed up for rubbernecking. And then you have no idea why you stopped. That’s very frustrating.

I guess my point is that even though it won’t necessarily increase your productivity if you do things faster, it will definitely increase your productivity if everyone else goes faster.

But how do we get through to those people? Maybe we should put huge billboards on the side of the road (“PRODUCTIVITY TIP: DO THINGS FASTER”).

About the Author

Mordechai Schmutter writes a weekly humor column for Hamodia, a monthly humorous advice column for The Jewish Press, and a comic strip for The 20s and 30s of Brooklyn. He is also the author of the books, Don’t Yell “Challah” in a Crowded Matzah Bakery, A Clever Title Goes Here, This Side Up, Cholent Mix, and What Is This - Some Kind of Joke? all published by Israel Book Shop. In his spare time, which doesn't exist, he attempts to teach Language Arts to a bunch of high school guys, most of whom are usually too upset that he showed up on any given day to even pay attention to his lessons. He is also available to do stand-up comedy. He lives in New Jersey, but no longer remembers why.

My nephew is having his bar mitzvah and I am thinking of a gift. In the old days, the gift of choice was a fountain pen, then a Walkman, and today an iPod. But I want to get him something special. What do you suggest?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Since this event celebrates the young person becoming obligated in the commandments, the most appropriate gift is, naturally, one that gives a deeper understanding of the Jewish heritage and enables one to better perform the mitzvot! (An iPod, s/he can get anytime.)

With that in mind, my favorite gift idea is a tzedakah (charity) box. Every Jew should have a tzedakah box in his home, so he can drop in change on a regular basis. The money can then be given to support a Jewish school or institution -- in your home town or in Israel (every Jews’ “home town”). There are beautiful tzedakah boxes made of wood and silver, and you can see a selection here.

For boys, a really beautiful gift is a pair of tefillin, the black leather boxes which contain parchments of Torah verses, worn on the bicep and the head. Owning a pair of Tefillin (and wearing them!) is an important part of Jewish identity. But since they are expensive (about $400), not every Bar Mitzvah boy has a pair. To make sure you get kosher Tefillin, see here.

In 1944, the Nazis perpetrated the Children's Action in the Kovno Ghetto. That day and the next, German soldiers conducted house-to-house searches to round up all children under age 12 (and adults over 55) -- and sent them to their deaths at Fort IX. Eventually, the Germans blew up every house with grenades and dynamite, on suspicion that Jews might be in hiding in underground bunkers. They then poured gasoline over much of the former ghetto and incinerated it. Of the 37,000 Jews in Kovno before the Holocaust, less than 10 percent survived. One of the survivors was Rabbi Ephraim Oshri, who later published a stirring collection of rabbinical responsa, detailing his life-and-death decisions during the Holocaust. Also on this date, in 1937, American Jews held a massive anti-Nazi rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden.

In a letter to someone who found it difficult to study Torah, the 20th century sage the Chazon Ish wrote:

"Some people find it hard to be diligent in their Torah studies. But the difficulty persists only for a short while - if the person sincerely resolves to submerge himself in his studies. Very quickly the feelings of difficulty will go away and he will find that there is no worldly pleasure that can compare with the pleasure of studying Torah diligently."

Although actions generally have much greater impact than thoughts, thoughts may have a more serious effect in several areas.

The distance that our hands can reach is quite limited. The ears can hear from a much greater distance, and the reach of the eye is much farther yet. Thought, however, is virtually limitless in its reach. We can think of objects millions of light years away, and so we have a much greater selection of improper thoughts than of improper actions.

Thought also lacks the restraints that can deter actions. One may refrain from an improper act for fear of punishment or because of social disapproval, but the privacy of thought places it beyond these restraints.

Furthermore, thoughts create attitudes and mindsets. An improper action creates a certain amount of damage, but an improper mindset can create a multitude of improper actions. Finally, an improper mindset can numb our conscience and render us less sensitive to the effects of our actions. We therefore do not feel the guilt that would otherwise come from doing an improper act.

We may not be able to avoid the occurrence of improper impulses, but we should promptly reject them and not permit them to dwell in our mind.

Today I shall...

make special effort to avoid harboring improper thoughts.

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